Cristea Roberts Gallery Exhibition Information | November 2019
43 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5JG Press Contact: Elle Shea +44 (0)20 7439 1866 [email protected] [email protected] +44 (0)20 7439 1866 www.cristearoberts.com
Naum Gabo: Spatial Impressions 9 January - 8 February 2020 Private View Wednesday 8 January 2020, 6 - 7.30pm
The Realistic Manifesto was published on the occasion of an open air exhibition in Moscow by Gabo and Pevsner, just three years after the Russian Revolution and two years after the end of the First World War. It acted as the focal point of debate within Russia on what the role of art should be. Gabo and Pevsner’s belief was that art should reflect the modern world or that, in their words, “the realisation of our perceptions of the world in the forms of space and time is the only aim of our pictorial and plastic art.”
It was 30 years after the publication of The Realistic Manifesto that Gabo, encouraged by William Irvins, a former curator of prints at the Museum of Modern Art, made his first print. This initial experiment, an impression taken from the bottom of a chair leg, whetted Gabo’s appetite for the medium and he went on to produce an extensive body of woodcuts over the next 25 years. His main body of monoprints, Opus I – XII, some of which will be on display in this exhibition, consisted of twelve works or ‘Opera’ of which he made numerous printed variants. None were editioned, but instead the artist used the woodblocks to create unique versions, in each case showing how, by altering colour, tone, paper and orientation, he could radically change the nature and balance of a single composition. Only a small number of these works remain in circulation. Naum Gabo, Opus Six (WE 320), 1955/56. Monoprint from professionally made end-grain block of Florida wood. Courtesy the Estate of Naum Gabo and Cristea Roberts Gallery, London. Following his major retrospective with Pevsner at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1948 and his involvement with several Rare woodblock prints by Russian artist Naum Gabo (1890 – important commissions, printmaking offered Gabo the opportunity 1970), one of the most important and influential sculptors of the to work creatively in the far more intimate environment of his own twentieth century, will go on display at Cristea Roberts Gallery’s studio. As such, these prints provide a fascinating insight into the Print Project Space from 9 January – 8 February 2020. Naum artist’s creative process at a time when he saw himself, in his own Gabo: Spatial Impressions features over 30 works sourced words, “in a state of intense vitality which I have not experienced directly from the artist’s estate and coincides with the largest ever before.” survey of Gabo’s work in the UK at Tate St Ives (25 January – 3 May 2020). Both exhibitions mark the centenary of The Realistic Throughout his work, an abiding interest in wave motion, field Manifesto, a text published by Gabo and his brother, Antoine theory and the geometry of curved lines is reflected in the Pevsner, in 1920, which served as a catalyst for the Constructivist dynamism of his compositions in both sculpture and print. movement in post-war Europe and beyond. The Cristea Roberts Gallery is the exclusive worldwide Spatial Impressions will showcase works made by Gabo in the representative for the prints from the Naum Gabo Estate. latter half of his career, between the 1950s and 1960s, that trace The Print Project Space presents an ongoing programme of public the development of his artistic principles following his discovery of displays featuring prints and editions by the gallery’s roster of the potential of printmaking. Gabo chose not to edition his prints international artists. and worked almost exclusively in the woodcut technique, producing an extensive body of unique works on paper that he made in his own studio and without the assistance of a printer. Cristea Roberts Gallery Exhibition Information
43 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5JG Press Contact: Elle Shea +44 (0)20 7439 1866 [email protected] [email protected] +44 (0)20 7439 1866 www.cristearoberts.com
NOTES TO EDITORS His main body of prints consisted of twelve images from which he made numerous printed variants. None were editioned, but instead Private View: the artist used the woodblocks to create unique versions, in each 6 - 7.30pm, Wednesday 8 January 2020 case showing how, by altering colour, tone, paper and orientation, he could radically change the nature and balance of a single Visitor information: composition. Only a small number of these works remain in circulation. Mon - Fri 10am - 5.30pm Sat 11am - 2pm Naum Gabo died aged 87 in 1977, in Connecticut, USA. Closed on Sundays and public holidays Cristea Roberts Gallery is the exclusive worldwide representative Travel: for the prints from the Naum Gabo Estate. Piccadilly or Green Park underground station
+44 (0)20 7439 1866 About Cristea Roberts Gallery [email protected] www.cristearoberts.com Cristea Roberts Gallery is a leading international contemporary art Twitter: @CristeaRoberts gallery with a particular focus on original prints and works on Instagram: @cristearoberts paper. Since its inception, the gallery has commissioned a Facebook: Cristea Roberts Gallery significant number editions by a wide range of artists, whilst also #NaumGabo representing others for their unique works. The underlying ethos of the gallery has always been artist-led. It was originally founded in 1995 as the Alan Cristea Gallery and changed its name in About the artist September 2019 to Cristea Roberts Gallery.
Naum Gabo (1890 - 1977), born Naum Pevsner in Briansk, Russia, Acknowledged as one of the leading galleries in its field of was a pioneer of the Constructivist movement and one of the most specialty, the gallery’s programme is dedicated to publishing, important and influential sculptors of the twentieth century. cataloguing, exhibiting and dealing in original prints and drawings by its roster of over 30 important international artists and Estates. Gabo trained in Munich as a scientist and engineer before making It participates in all the major international art fairs and has a his first constructions while living in Oslo in 1915 under the name dynamic programme of exhibitions hosted in its bespoke space in Naum Gabo. From 1917 - 1922 he lived in Moscow where he Pall Mall, London. worked with Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin. In 1920 they jointly issued, with his brother Antoine Pevsner, The gallery works closely with international museums on the Realistic Manifesto which set out the principles of acquisitions and loans, and examples of its editions are held in Constructivism and advocated a new abstract sculpture. major public collections around the world including Tate, London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Museum of Gabo had his first exhibition with Pevsner at the Galerie Percier, Modern Art, New York. Paris, 1924. He spent the next ten years in Berlin where he came into contact with artists of de Stijl group and the Bauhaus. In 1933 he moved to London, where he worked with Ben Nicholson. Together they edited the manifesto Circle in 1937. He went to St. Ives with Nicholson during the war, and then emigrated to America, where he spent the rest of his life.
Perhaps best known for his three-dimensional constructions, Gabo was always resistant to the idea of the traditional ‘editioned print’, instead choosing to make a significant body of unique woodcuts over an extended period of time. He made the first of these monoprints in 1950 at the suggestion of William Ivins, formerly curator of prints at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and continued the practice for the rest of his life.